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Concern over the accident mounted as the poisonous slick moved downstream. When the extent of the devastation became clear, European officials fired a barrage of criticism at Swiss authorities, complaining that they had failed to supply news about the accident for 24 hours and then had not properly warned neighboring countries about the extent of the damage. "The Swiss have treated us in a beastly manner," complained Neelie Smit-Kroes, the Dutch Minister for Transport and Public Works. The Swiss assuaged tempers somewhat by accepting responsibility for the accident and stating that they would consider paying compensation. The delay in getting out information about the accident, said Swiss officials, was due to a "misunderstanding."
Environmentalists were also critical of Sandoz, Switzerland's second largest chemical company. At a meeting called in Basel to discuss the incident, protesters pelted company officials with dead eels. The firm finally admitted that it had underestimated the risk of such an accident and confirmed that Sandoz officials had decided not to act on some recommendations, made five years earlier by an insurance company, to improve warehouse safety. Company spokesmen insisted, however, that Sandoz had broken no laws in storing the chemicals.
Anger among European officials was fanned further at midweek when Ciba- Geigy, Switzerland's largest chemical company, admitted spilling about 105 gal. of the herbicide Atrazine into the Rhine the night before the Sandoz fire. The discharge of the chemicals, which is forbidden by law, was discovered only after officials tested the river for pollution from the Sandoz accident. While a Swiss water official asserted that the Ciba-Geigy accident did not kill the fish, the disclosure increased demands for stricter laws regulating chemical storage.
For the Rhine, however, those measures may be too late. Scientists say the accident has biologically devastated the river along a 180-mile stretch north of Basel. Perhaps the most damage was done by several hundred pounds of the mercury-based fungicide Tillex, which settled into the riverbed just downstream from the Sandoz warehouse. It will have to be dredged up as soon as possible, Swiss authorities said, or the current may wash it farther downstream. "The Rhine will be dead for years to come," said Professor Ragnar Kinzelbach of the Technical University in Darmstadt, West Germany. Although locks and floodgates were closed to protect many of the river's tributaries from the poisonous flow, other waterways appear threatened. Dutch officials say the Ijssel River, which branches off the Rhine in southeastern Holland, is now carrying part of the slick. They also expect the contaminated Rhine water to enter the shallow sea north of the Friesland and Groningen provinces. That could pose new dangers for birds, fish and seals.
Ecologists have been working for years to improve the quality of the Rhine's water, but that project has now been set back at least a decade. Indeed, as the bad news mounted, even the river's legend seemed in peril. In a front-page cartoon, the German weekly Die Zeit showed the mythic Lorelei looking lost and forlorn. The reason: chemicals were making the maiden's hair fall out.